


sorry, baby (i'm in love with you)

by levlinwinlaer



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: @bbc where is my second season, F/F, Villaneve, look i love killing eve
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-05-15 01:29:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14781056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levlinwinlaer/pseuds/levlinwinlaer
Summary: "I know," Eve says, self-consciously. "It's a little-""Boring?" Villanelle asks, already shaking her head. "Never."or,They meet on a stalled subway- Eve Polastri, the upper-class lawyer bored out of her mind, and Villanelle, the- well. Who knows, really?





	1. nice face

**Author's Note:**

> killing eve is so good wtf

A steady job, an apartment on a quiet street in the Upper East Side, a small group of close friends from college- Eve Polastri is far from unusual. A normal middle-class upbringing, picket fence and all, a degree in a good field from a reputable college, a string of six-month boyfriends that never really turned into anything more. Nothing more to be said.

Today, she's running late for her upper-class job in an upper-class law firm, which starts at 7 AM on the dot under her hardass of a boss. She barely makes the 6 train, sprinting through the closing doors with a second to spare, and collapses in a seat.

The car is, mercifully, practically empty- only two other people. A middle-aged man a few seats down is bent over his phone, headphones in. And across from Eve, regarding her with a curious expression, is a woman. She's blonde. Gorgeous. A pretty pink mouth, and an odd look in her catlike eyes. Eve smiles at her instinctively, and receives a curling marvel of a grin in response.

Eve looks down awkwardly, biting her bottom lip, and silence descends.

The train wheezes to a halt at Lexington, and the middle-aged man gets off. Eve looks up to watch him go, and her gaze wanders over to the woman, who is still-  _still_ \- looking at her, head tilted to the side. Eve racks her brain for anything that must be wrong- maybe her lipstick is smudged, or there's something in her teeth, or- oh. She forgot to brush her hair this morning. That must be it. Coupled with the humidity, and the bedhead-

 _God, I must look a mess_ , Eve thinks to herself. She reaches up to tie her hair back, and abruptly the woman speaks.

"Leave it down," she says.

The words echo through the empty car, as the train rattles beneath their feet. Eve looks up, surprised, and catches the woman's eyes again. This time, she holds her gaze.

"What?"

"Your hair." The woman's voice is sharp and lovely and cuts through the quiet like a hot knife through butter. "You look good."

The compliment makes Eve flush, but it's mostly the tone in which the woman says it. Flirtatious, perhaps. Sincere. She has an accent- Russian, maybe?

"If you say so," Eve says, feeling daring, and leaves it down. In her peripheral, she sees the woman smile in satisfaction.

The train rumbles on. No one gets on at 51st. Eve doesn't dare to look up from the sheaf of work-related papers.

Ten minutes into the ride, somewhere in the midst of a dark tunnel between 51st and Grand Central, the train makes an odd noise, and jerks to a halt. After a moment, the announcer's voice filters through the muddy loudspeakers.

"Our apologies. We're experiencing unforeseen delays. Please do not attempt to exit the train. We will be moving shortly."

Eve curses, rummages angrily through her papers. There's no way she'll be on time- it's already 6:43, and she has something like twelve stops left. She lets her head fall back against the wall, and sighs in exasperated resignation.

The throaty chuckle from across the car reminds Eve that she's not alone, and her head snaps up to meet the woman's amused gaze.

"Late?" she asks.

"Yeah." Eve decides to venture a little more information. "I work on Wall Street, at a corporate law firm. Starts at seven, and there's no way I'm gonna make it today. You?"

"I work-" She pauses. "Freelance."

"Really?" Eve scans her- fashionably well-dressed. She must come from money, or something. "In what field?"

The woman shrugs, still smiling. "Oh, you know. This and that. I dabble in all sorts of things."

"Vague," Eve notes, curiosity sparked.

"Well, I enjoy being mysterious."

"Even with strangers on the subway?"

"Of course." The stranger shoots her a penetrating look. "Mystery's all part of the appeal."

It feels like flirting. Eve's heart is, for some reason, racing.

"Hey, what's your name?" she asks, before she can stop herself.

"Elle," the woman responds after a moment. "It's a nickname."

"I'm Eve."

"It's a pleasure," Elle says, and something in the way she says it- voice low, eyes intent-makes Eve's cheeks burn.

"Likewise."

"So, this corporate law job?"

Eve groans in mock agony, lets her head thud back against the wall. "It's hell. I mean, I make money off of it, and all- but the hours are crazy, you know? And it doesn't really matter."

"Right," Elle agrees, her eyes tracing lines up and down Eve's bared throat. Eve can see her watching, through her eyelashes, and it's an odd feeling of confidence, some heady rush of  _something_.

"Sometimes I think I'd be better off doing something that matters, whatever that's supposed to mean, but this is New York. I'd never be able to pay my rent."

Elle hums in agreement.

"Look," Eve begins, brazenly, "you're some stranger on a subway, so I probably shouldn't tell you my life story, but you know what'd be ideal?"

"Yes?"

"Florence. In Italy. Some street with red roofs everywhere, and a museum next door, and Italian wine and pasta every night, and exploring every nook and cranny. Just a vacation, of course- a few weeks, or something, otherwise I wouldn't be able to afford it." She laughs to herself, eyes closing as she imagines it. "Learning Italian from the locals. Living with someone in an apartment with blue walls and gold curtains. I don't know. There's just something about dreaming."

Her voice tapers off, then, the words fading, and she opens her eyes and sees the fluorescent white lights and the drab beige subway wallpaper and the bright artificial ads for food delivery services, and beneath it all is Elle, staring at her with that odd something still in her eyes.

Abruptly, the train lurches, and starts to move again, and Eve is back, embedded firmly in reality, and very embarrassed.

"Sorry, I rambled," Eve says, touching her mouth self-consciously.

"No, not at all," Elle says, still staring. She looks enchanted, even as the train pulls into Grand Central, and she rises to get off.

"Well, it was nice meeting you, Elle from the 6 train," Eve says.

"Likewise, Eve Polastri," Elle responds. "I hope this will not be the last time we see each other."

"Yeah," Eve says, meeting her eyes. "Me too."

As Elle disappears into the swarm of commuters, Eve catches a whiff of her perfume- dark, sweet, rich. Fitting.

 

It's only at the 23rd Street Station that Eve realises that she never told Elle her last name.


	2. i'll deal with him later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> villanelle's already in just a little bit too deep (and yes, this is probably gonna switch around a little in terms of pov)

"She has dreams," Villanelle says abruptly, halfway through pouring herself a glass of champagne from one of the bottles she keeps in her expensive New York apartment.

Konstantin shrugs. "We all do."

"Hers are-" Villanelle stops the bubbling flow of alcohol to think for a moment- "unique."

"What does she dream of?" Konstantin's eyes are unrelenting, perusing every twitch in her expression.

"Florence." Villanelle sighs, manoeuvres herself up and off the kitchen counter. "You know, in Italy."

"I know where Florence is," Konstantin says, deadpan.

"She wants to live there. Or vacation there, but she really wants to live there."

He frowns at her. "Why do you care?"

"I don't," she replies, sipping from the glass. Dainty, elegant. One pinky sticking out.

Konstantin scoffs, but doesn't say anything else. All he does is reach out, an open palm between them. A symbol of- not trust, but a promise, perhaps. A mix of  _I hope you know what you're doing_ and _I won't interfere with this little obsession unless it becomes necessary._

Villanelle pours champagne into his hand.

Konstantin swears at her irritably, wiping his hand off on his jacket.

"So?" she asks, draining the rest of the glass.

Konstantin glowers at her, mood souring by the minute. "I wish the Twelve had assigned me to a more tolerable case."

"Don't be such a grump," she chides playfully, and then sobers, looking up at the ticking clock above the mantelpiece. "Let me tell you what we're going to do, Konstantin."

He stiffens, smelling murder on the horizon.

"We," Villanelle says, drawing it out far too long (as usual), "are going to put the oven to use."

"What?"

She bursts into a radiant smile of childish glee. "We're baking cookies!"

"You are insane," Konstantin says, but he catches the cookbook she tosses at him anyway.

 

Villanelle is good at a lot of things. Murder, for one. Seduction. Disguises. Wielding weapons. Being beautiful. Murder, again.

One thing she does not particularly excel at is baking.

She has the patience, yes. The precise, careful hands. The unbearable exuberance. In fact, the cookies aren't bad at all.

But the unfortunate side effect of baking with Villanelle is that she shapes the cookies into dead bodies and decorates them with strategically-placed red icing. Konstantin points out, four trays of cookies in, that should she want anyone "normal" to actually want to eat them, she should wait a few months for Halloween; and even then, some of them are really quite gory.

Villanelle, as expected, ignores him in favour of humming and drawing a particularly vivid patch of red across a cookie body's nether regions.

"Oksana," he says, sitting heavily in an armchair, and raising an eyebrow at the expectant look she levels him with. "What?"

"Damn," she says. "I put the thumbtacks on the other one."

He chooses not to respond. "What are all these for?"

"A celebration of you joining me in New York, of course," she says cheerily. "Also, my darling Eve lives right across the hall, and should I bump into her at around-" she checks an invisible watch- "eight twenty-one, when she comes back from work, I should be in a perfect position to invite her in for cookies and a glass of milk. I've even made them gluten free."

Konstantin leans back, grudgingly impressed. "Not bad."

"It really is a perfect coincidence," she continues thoughtfully. "One day, she meets a stranger on a subway. The train is stopped for a moment, long enough for them to develop a connection. And two weeks later, they find each other in the hallways of an upscale New York City apartment. It's almost as if it was-"

"Stop monologuing," Konstantin interrupts, and steals a cookie out from beneath Villanelle's offended gaze.

 

Eight o'clock comes and goes, and Villanelle goes tense with anticipation, watching for any shadows beneath the front door. She's packed away the murder cookies, replaced them in the oven with a tray of perfectly rounded cookies. The apartment is tidied, one half-full glass of red wine posed on the counter, more glasses stocked in the cabinets. Villanelle is ready and waiting to play her part.

The oven timer goes off. Villanelle goes to take them out, and has one hot-pink oven mitt grasping the tray, when footsteps echo in the hallway outside, and keys jingle faintly. Konstantin and Villanelle exchange a look, before Konstantin is on his feet and bolting to the front door. Villanelle curses, sets down the tray with an angry clatter, and chases him down, barely reaching the now-open door in order to catch a glimpse of his retreating back, and Eve Polastri in the corridor, watching him go.

"Sorry," Villanelle starts, "that was my uncle, he's-"

"Oh my god." Eve cuts her off. "Elle? From the-"

"Subway. Yes." Villanelle smiles at her, giddy at the look of her, hair wild and coat undone. "What a coincidence! I can't believe we live right across from each other. Two weeks- I knew it would not be the last time we met."

"Right," Eve says. "You were right."

"Well," Villanelle begins, "I've just made cookies. Would you like to come in?"

Eve hesitates for a moment, but she meets Villanelle's pleading gaze with a smile, and nods.

"I would love to," she says.

Villanelle beams, backs through the door, and welcomes Eve into her lair.

 

"This is such a surprise," Eve says, after cookies turn into dinner ("Please, I ordered far too much, and I couldn't possibly eat all of it myself-") which turns into wine ("I have this marvellous red which you must try-") which turns into sitting on the couch and talking (and Villanelle trying to determine what brand of shampoo Eve uses in the least creepy way possible).

"No," Villanelle says simply. "It's not. I knew we would see each other again."

"Right." Eve frowns. "And you also- while we were talking on the subway, you- you said my last name?"

Villanelle hides her irritation. One tiny mistake, caught up in the thrill of the chase, in getting too close. Stupid. She had said Eve's name, relished it as it left her lips like the most wonderful kind of intimacy.

"I have heard of you," she admits coyly. "From the residential list, in the apartment. I recognised your name, but I wasn't quite sure it was you. I had to say it."

"Then why didn't you find me sooner?"

_Damn. Smart girl, even after three glasses of Florence's best wine._

"That," Villanelle murmurs, plucking the glass from Eve's fingers and leaning in, "is up for you to wonder."

Eve blinks once, twice, gaze fixed on the curl of Villanelle's mouth. "I- think you're right."

"Excellent," Villanelle says, and kisses her.


	3. don't i know you?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i love eve 'gay panic' polastri and oksana 'gay mess' astonkova  
> also welcome irina!!! yay!

Eve yanks herself back from Elle's mouth so fast she nearly falls flat on her ass.

Elle stares at her, hand still frozen midair where she must have been about to draw Eve closer. Her jaw snaps shut, hand dropping, and her face closes off.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I did not mean to-"

"No! No, it's not your fault at all. I just- I kind of wasn't expecting it?" Eve laughs nervously, brushing her hair away from her face. She clambers to her feet, and starts backing away while she can still recover some pieces of her dignity. "I should be going, anyway. It's past midnight. Jesus. This has been nice. And you're really- wow. But, uh, I'm a little drunk, and I don't really know you all that well-" her fingers find purchase on the doorknob, thank  _God_ , and Elle is standing in front of her looking like a kicked puppy- "thank you for tonight, it's been lovely. I'll see you around?"

She doesn't wait for a response before slipping out the door and beating a hasty retreat to her apartment across the hall. The door closes behind her and she leans limply against it.

"Fuck," she whispers to herself.

 

She doesn't see Elle for another three days.

 

"Hey! Eve!"

Eve tugs an earbud out. "Hi, Alex."

Her coworker/technically-boss-but-no-one-takes-him-seriously plants his hands on her desk, which is how she knows he wants something.

"What?" she asks suspiciously.

"Okay, hear me out."

"If this is anything like the scheme you pulled off at the last office Christmas party, I want nothing to do with it."

"No! It's not like that. I, uh, I kind of need you to go out and buy a swingset?"

Eve glares.

"I have good reasons. Don't even worry about it. I'll give you my credit card and I'll cover for you. Please, Eve."

She raises an unimpressed eyebrow.

"Okay, fine." He lowers his voice to a whisper, looking around to see if anyone's listening in. "The swingset- you know how Bill's daughter is turning seven in a week? So I thought as a present the office could give her a swingset!"

"Alex, we live in New York City. Where the hell is she going to put this swingset?"

He shushes her. "Just buy the swingset. We'll do details later."

The credit card is shoved into Eve's hands and she's pushed ungracefully out the door.

She sighs, decides there's nothing to be done, and begins the long walk to the nearest ACE Hardware. ACE has everything, right?

 

Sometime around three PM (four stores later), Eve gives up and buys the damn swingset on Amazon while slumped in a café corner booth. She orders herself a coffee and a croissant on Alex's card just out of spite.

Eve takes a gulp of her coffee- creamy but not too sweet- just as the door clatters open and someone (a woman, from the sounds of it, and oddly familiar) shouts something in Russian.

On instinct, Eve spins in her seat, ducking behind the booth. When the café's noise proceeds as usual, she relaxes, leaning out- and she comes eye to eye with a small, irritated-looking child with a mop of curly hair. The child looks at her, tips her head to the side, and yanks on the sleeve of the woman standing next to her.

"Jesus, what? You are worse than- oh. Eve?"

Elle, staring surprisedly down at Eve. It's oddly gratifying to see her off-balance.

"Elle," Eve responds. Her heart skips a beat, annoyingly, at the smile that graces Elle's face.

The child scoffs. "Elle?"

Elle murmurs something in Russian. Her tone is overly pleasant, but Eve knows "fuck off" when she hears it, regardless of the language barrier.

"Hi," she says, sticking out her hand. "I'm Eve."

The child takes her hand sullenly. "Irina."

"She's my- cousin," Elle explains. "You remember my crazy uncle? This is his daughter."

Irina shifts abruptly, and there's the unmistakable sound of what will be a nasty bruise in the morning. Elle, to her credit, manages to swallow a howl of agony as her shin starts to purple in the shape of Irina's boot.

"I can see the resemblance," Eve says, and then winks at Irina. "Though admittedly I'd rather take your father in a fight."

Irina finally cracks a smile. "Good choice."

"What about me?" Elle cuts in, smiling winningly. "Could you beat me in a fight?"

"I think I could take you," Eve drawls teasingly. The awkwardness from the last night they saw each other disappears as quickly as it came with the familiar exchange.

"Yeah, any girl could," Irina mutters. Elle elbows her hard in the shoulder.

"Here, sit down," Eve says, waving them into the booth. "I just ordered, so let me call the waiter over."

"We're having a late lunch," Irina says, sliding in next to Eve and sticking out her tongue at Elle, "because  _someone_  is a pig and already had three meals today, so she refused to have lunch at a normal hour."

"You don't say," Eve says. "Well, lunch is on me then, as an apology for you having such a poor host."

Irina  _hmphs_  smugly and kicks Elle under the table.

Elle flirts outrageously with Eve and Irina complains about school and having to put up with "Elle" (she says it in quotations every time), and Eve listens and bitches right back about selling her soul to a Wall Street law firm. By the time Irina and Elle finish their heaping plates of food, they're talking like they've known each other for years. Eve, true to her word, uses Alex's credit card to foot the (frankly enormous) bill.

Afterwards, Irina runs to the register to buy an ice cream, and Elle and Eve are left alone.

"Elle's not your real name, is it?" Eve asks.

Elle smiles wryly. "No. I don't come from here, see, so I changed it." She steels herself, lifts her chin. "My name is Oksana."

"Oksana," Eve repeats, and something like surprise flits over Elle- Oksana's face.

"Oh," she murmurs, almost to herself. "I like that."

Eve doesn't have a chance to respond- Irina runs up between them and smears her four-scoop ice cream cone under Oksana's chin. Oksana yelps at the cold and shoves her away, disgruntled.

"Alright," Eve says, not bothering to try to break up the fight. "Look, I've got to go back to the office, but it's been a pleasure to meet you, Irina. And Oksana-"

"Come over sometime," Oksana says, her fingers brushing Eve's. "I'll behave, I promise." She winks.

"I will," Eve promises. Oksana kisses her cheek, a quick lightning motion, and then grabs Irina and pushes her out of the café.

Eve freezes, touches a hand to her cheek. She feels warm all over, almost giddy.

 _Fuck_.


End file.
